Carluccio’s update

A few days ago I posted a story about the vegan menu at Carluccio’s, the High Street chain of Italian restaurants.

Since it went live, a few readers got in touch to let me know they believe some of the ingredients featured on the vegan menu are fried in the same oil as non-vegan ingredients.

I reached out to Carluccio’s and this is what they had to say:

Thanks for getting in touch regarding our Vegan menu. I can advise that we do our best to cater to dietary requirements across the board, but due to a physical limitation on space in our kitchens, we cannot always avoid cross contamination. This is noted on the bottom of our vegan menu:

‘Due to limited equipment deep fried items may be fried alongside items that are not suitable for this type of diet.’

We are transparent about this and we feel it leaves people to make the choice as to whether or not specific items are suitable for them.

The dish affected on the vegan menu is the Verdure Fritta (fried veggies).

There you go. If you don’t want to eat something fried in the same oil as non-vegan food, don’t order the Verdure Fritta at Carluccio’s.

You can read my original post about the vegan menu at Carluccio’s by clicking here.

Not that anybody is not entitled to their opinion, but I think this kind of argument makes more harm than good. By setting the bar higher to mainstream food retailers we are effectively making harder financially to offer vegan options and hence making veganism more expensive.

Saddens me to hear that people are not unconditionally happy with these kind of initiatives.